Why do you qualify Religion with “natural/spiritual”?
Is there some other kind of active good-faith,
not pertaining to both natural-left
and spiritual-right
health-restoring climates?

Well, not that I know of,
but I want to be clear
this polypath toward transubstantiating sacred/secular experience
is not optimally accessible
to dualistic theological minds,
pitting natural yang-space
against spiritual yin-bilateral time,
left against right,
healthy day oppositionally against pathological night
rather than appositionally co-refining defining
prime ZeroZone relationships
of outside/inside co-acclimation
eco/ego
yin/yang
anima/animus ancient natureLeft/spiritsRight powers
of bicameral bilaterality.

I am sorry we did not receive even just a moment to say goodbye
and thank you to each other
for all those school bus rides we took together,
you in your harness,
and me in my wonder
about what’s coming next
from your talking head
to mine.

It is time for me to move on
to another student,
but I am happy to leave you in Miss Josie’s care.

I know she will enjoy your time
invested in each other,

Listening and taking turns speaking kindly with each other,
Singing and maybe even a little dancing together,
reading and drawing as light and bumps allow.

Maybe you can teach each other
some new KnockKnock jokes.

KnockKnock.
Who’s there?
Sandi.
Sandy who?
Sandy sandwiches
are not good for you.

KnockKnock.
Who’s there?
Josie.
Josie who?
Jo see for yourself,
Open the door!

I am grateful to have so many silly and lovely memories
of you
to take with me.

And, the greatest farewell gift you could give me
is your reassurance
that these same warm and happy memories
of us
are what you will carry with you
throughout your great adventurous journey
into well-being.

Warmly yours,

Sandi

Sandi who?
Sandy snacks
are not so good for you.

Note:

My behaviorally disordered ADHD and fetal alcoholic daughter, with abandonment issues and deep-seeded food anxiety issues, suddenly lost her long-standing school bus aide, probably to compassion burn-out. Ivy can be a profound motivator of impatience in those around her, even with deep and widely developed caregiving and receiving skills. This is the farewell that I think Ivy would have found more therapeutic than the isolating complexities of disappearance without explanation or expressed gratitude for what did co-relationally work for so long.

To be clear, not saying goodbye was an administrative decision from above; not what Ivy’s aide wanted for herself or for Ivy.

I am remembering our strong negative responses
to the young woman who surreptitiously read
her aunt’s very private diary,
filled with vulnerable statements
of the most intimate nature
and transparently lusty spirit,

Yet, though secretive,
then took a bold black marker
and wrote vulgar, poisonous words
on most every previously locked and hidden page,

And yet, even here
she used her own judgmental inside voices
but wrote in her younger innocent brother’s hand.

We both found her choices highly distressing;
difficult to even read, imagine
squeamish to hear from a young niece perpetrator
or an old aunt victim.

I wonder if this is because we can empathize with both
the obstreperous and egocentric young, disturbed
with adult hidden and disruptively vulnerable agendas,
rebellions,
sometimes hedonistic
sometimes narcissistic,
usually both, back and forth
like yang then yin,
patriarchal power lust, then matriarchal depression
in response to chronic economic and political repression.

Powers brought to a very exclusive co-arising table of one,
acting as a duplicitous two,
bipolar in passive-aggressive
depressive-manic responses
to surprising disclosures
of older, respected, staid hidden agendas
written by those we have truly loved
and hoped to continue loving
without remainder, reserve,
without this unexpected erupting hidden agenda
to protect ourselves from what feels creepy
too manic or paranoid,
smelling of hidden conspiracies
to express attraction
in ways deviant from our own proper expectations
for our own,
and Other’s, therapeutic integral behavior.

I thought of that wicked niece,
and our responses to her perfidy,
after a dream last night
in which Donald Trump
was writing curse words
with a bold black marker
in his dominant RightWing hand
all over his concrete wall

And then all over the original Jeffersonian Declaration
of Interdependence
away from white narcissistic,
patriarchal,
unenlightened royal privilege

Written with compassionate radical trust intention
trying to declare all creatures,
slave and free,
enlightened plants and planet,
equal in everyday enchanting dignity,
assuming great prosperity benefits of polycultural cooperative economies
internationally fertile,
valid,
effective for well-being
of all the people,
plants,
planet,

Still to this Trumpian day falling politically short,
still awaiting fulfillment
by those who can read and write more skillfully,
non-violently
less passive-aggressively,
less conspiratorially
less toxically enraged by WinLose multicultural losses
across the pages of our transparently democratic
yet divine
intent.

Anyway,
it seems we recognize this aversion to hidden narcissism
through empathy, cooperatively empassioned
in each other as a polypathic strength
strongly shared.

Thank you for speaking in solidarity
for a healthier, effluent ecofeminist affluent flow power
as we read across the pages of our own hopeful history books,

Still holding old school faith
found in each other’s passioned eyes and ears
and relentless spiritual-natural senses
of positive and negative and double-negative humors,
tumors benign and cancerous
rumors of magical queendoms
at our open liberal loving left hand,

Where agendas may be hidden
but not from shame or blame weapons
so much as reserved for our own tool-shaping pleasure
to disclose when and as we choose
and as our gifts for compassionate co-empathy
are most multiculturally needed,
exercised,
stretched toward optimally resonant
resilience for all people,
young nieces and old aunts certainly included,
and MotherTrees
and humbler passioned plants
and MotherLanded planet.

I want to give her a hug,
to share a mutual hug,
opposite of a hostile shrug
instead of caring with each other,
To cooperatively embrace
recommitted to responsible compassionate health care
giving
and receiving.

But,
I need to ask her permission first
to cross this physical and spiritual boundary
between older and younger,
male and female,
employer and employee,

To ask her if she would feel obligated
to take care of my need to reach out
and reassure her we are in this life together,

Or could she freely say,
Not right now?
Without guilt or concern that taking care of me
could or should be more important
than taking care of herself,
her wounded past,
her coping skills protecting self-esteem
against sometimes smothering needs of others
wanting to be fed,
especially authority figures
too often invested in Win/Lose games
rather than Win/Win compassionate therapies.

But,
now is not a proper time to ask,
When she is in emotional distress.
Could she freely receive or deny an invitation
to mutual embrace?
For reassurance we will not be broken by this,
and perhaps this is an opportunity to grow together,
mutually healed by solidarity,
co-passionate intent,
reassurance,
mutual access, physical and spiritual,
with cooperative boundaries yet to be responsibly explored
through more robust compassion.

Even so,
I wish I could be free to ask her
if we might share a co-redemptive hug
rather than lurking in the wings of this chronic crisis stage
with only her tears
and my box of tissues
to speak how much we care
for a better tomorrow
together
rather than continuing too defensively apart.

When excess harvests feed greed,
growing across monoculturing
less competitive
colonized fields
over-ruled by authorities to punish trees for non-compliance
with enslaving commercial needs
and commodified values of prison workers
measured in capital outgoing
against financial investments incoming per day,
per hour
per minute
per second of progress v loss of accumulated fiber value,

Then ecofeminist time has come
for unitarian yin reverse-hierarchies,
for cooperatively democratic
restorational healing,
for Earth-therapeutic
revolutionary Slorax to speak,
to cooperatively learn and educate,
to non-violently communicate,
to polyculturally plan
healthier,
ecologically recreative,
economic outcomes for all residents.